Aston Martin hits sweet spot

Aston Martin boss Ulrich Bez reckons the company has given up being a car manufacturer. Instead, it’s become the purveyor of luxury goods. An Aston will be bought for one’s delectation, to be stuffed with Louis Vuitton luggage and ranked alongside the Château Lafite Rothschild ’59.

Its role as transport is secondary to its role as a lifestyle accessory.

Extend this concept further and you will start to understand why the new Virage is so familiar. Just as some classic Rolex watches have changed little since the Fifties, Aston’s grand tourer must evolve slowly.

It matters not that the £149,995 coupé looks almost identical to a six-year-old DB9 that can be yours for £40,000. Those in the know will notice and that’s all that matters.

That’s the marketing pitch anyway. The reality is that Aston lacks the financial firepower to deliver a wholly new model and must tweak and refine what it has.

The Virage is really a facelifted DB9 and will sit between that car and the more aggressively styled DBS. Aston reckons it’s the choice for those who want their coupés sporting but not that sporting.

Given the familiarity of the shape it’s a surprise to learn that every panel save the windscreen and roof is new. Look closely and you’ll see some lovely detailing.

Aston has become a dab hand at shaping its aluminium body panels and the Virage is a sinewy mass of subtle curves. The styling might not be novel but it’s undeniably beautiful. More contemporary and progressive than the DB9, it’s more elegant than the garish DBS.

Step inside and it’s even harder to distinguish the new from the increasingly old. There’s the same sweeping and slightly intimidating centre console, the same maddening array of buttons and the same aluminium dials that make up for in style what they lack in clarity. In this age of touchscreen infotainment it is starting to feel a little dated but it remains luxurious.

It looks, feels and smells handcrafted because that’s exactly what it is. Aston claims that 70 man hours are lavished on the interior alone. You get the impression that the car has been honed by a team that really cares, which is just as well given the price.

The standard Virage is sold as a two-seater with a pair of luggage bins behind the front seats to supplement the modest boot. For an extra £2,495 you can have a couple of extra seats that will be fine for infants or the abnormally small. Unlike the Bentley Continental GT, the Virage can make only a tenuous claim to seat four.

S uch practicalities are unlikely to bother most Virage customers, though. Of more concern will be the power produced by the venerable 6.0-litre V12 engine. In keeping with the Virage’s positioning, it has been tuned to develop 490bhp, which is 20bhp more than a DB9 and 20bhp less than a DBS.

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This strategy no doubt made sense in a marketing meeting but in the real world you’d be hard-pressed to tell the difference. It’s enough to know that the Virage is deliciously rapid, covering 0 to 60mph in 4.5 seconds and hitting 186mph. More relevant is the massive amount of pulling power that ensures there’s an effortless surge of thrust whenever you need it.

The reserves of performance are such that you never need to thrash this car. You just lean on the throttle and watch the world disappear in the rear-view mirror.

The DB9 is offered with a manual gearbox but the Virage comes as standard with a six-speed automatic. Some rivals now offer eight speeds and there’s a significant gap between second and third but the shift is smooth and the paddle-shift system encourages you to drive it hard.

The benefits of gentle evolution are felt throughout the car and the Virage is noticeably different from early-generation DB9s.

The steering has a delicacy of touch that makes a big difference in a car this rapid and the ride no longer feels like it’s in conflict with your spine, delivering as it does a comfortable cruise in keeping with the Virage’s transcontinental aspirations.

The electronic damping helps, too. Press a button to select Sport and you trade comfort for tauter body control when the mood takes you.

A separate Sport button adjusts the throttle, gearbox and exhaust, giving full voice to the sonorous V12 engine. The introduction of carbon ceramic brakes has also made a difference. They’re costly but superbly powerful.

Even the once shaky Volante cabriolet is much improved. Careful revisions to its structure have improved its rigidity so that it no longer gives you the shakes on a less-than-perfect road. The coupé is still the driver’s choice but the Volante gives you a better pose for an extra £8,000.

There are only a couple of gripes with the car. The first is the price. When the DB9 was launched in 2004 it cost a little over £100,000. Even allowing for inflation and those fancy brakes, a price of £150,000 for the Virage feels a bit steep especially when Bentley’s new Continental GT is almost £15,000 cheaper.

The second is the name. The original Virage was an unloved coupé built during Aston’s nadir in the late Eighties. Bringing it back seems odd and slightly misleading. Calling it DB10 would have felt more in tune with the car’s role as an evolved DB9.

There will come a point when Aston needs to develop an all-new car with a more modern, less-thirsty engine. For now, we should celebrate a triumph of careful evolution.